Two chips and a chair

Tonight I lived my own version of the famous poker fable “ A chip and a chair”.

I was down to only one $200 big blind, early (level 2) in the Venetian nightly tournament. More than three hours later, my magical run ended in level 11, with about twenty players left.

How did I even get there? First, I made a horrendous call decision for half my stack when a smaller stack went all in after the turn(with QJ) on a board of 2 8 J Q with the river still to come. I was down to only three outs with my AQ, and none came.

I get impatient with a small stack early in the tournament so I began looking for all-in opportunities. I found one soon with 10 10 and ended up in a race with an equal stack who had AK unsuited.

After the river spiked an ace and the dealer counted out the chips, it turned out I was not eliminated - I still had $200 left. (we began with $7,500)

I went all in on the next hand with J 10 suited and ran up against the same player holding KJ suited.

We split the pot when the board came out 8 10 Q K and a miracle ace on the river. Now I had $900. I then manoeuvred several more all-ins during the next few orbits and found myself back up to $6,000 in chips not much later.I then hung in and zigged and zagged for a few more hours as the blinds and antes increased very rapidly.

In fact my stack grew to over $15,000 at one point, but in the middle of level 11 I lost a crucial "race" holding QQ against another AK unsuited, and was back down to around $6,000 chips. But by then, the blinds were already $1,000/$2,000 with a $300 ante – so being the big blind, I pretty much had to go all-in with any two cards – which I did – a suited 7 3.

Two other players in similar predicaments were also all in with 96 and KJ. The 96 connected for two pairs and all of a sudden I was a railbird.

I can’t explain why, but this is the most bummed I have been about exiting from any of the tournaments I have played in so far.

On the bright side, I was at a really friendly table the whole evening. On my right was Jairus, owner of Maui Mike’s Fire Roasted Chicken restaurant in Wahiawa, Hawaii, and a bona fide surfer dude.

Two to Jarius’s right was Dean, from Western Australia, who entered the tournament with four of his buddies who are all on vacation from here. Dean is also a very serious surfer as well as a drag racing commentator back in OZ. Cool stuff.

Not so cool though, as it was one of Dean’s buddies whose AK bested my queens, and another whose 96 secured my exit from the tournament. Haha, such is tournament poker – by the late stages of a tournament, it really is not poker as purists would know it.

But it was fun honing my short stack strategies for several hours successfully – not to mention I did get lucky myself once or twice. (Like when my Q10 all-in beat an AQ all-in when a ten hit the river.)

In the afternoon tournament I went out in the late middle stages – this time as the victim of a “bad beat” when I called a shorter stack’s all-in holding A9 suited and he had K9 offsuit, and his rivered king removed half my stack.

This left me short stacked, and I was not so lucky trying to double up my own stack from there on.

So interestingly, my results in the daily tournaments so far are no different on balance (maybe even slightly worse) than prior trips – even though I know I am a far better player.

It means very little though as the sample size is hardly large - for example, serious online players will enter up to 40 tournaments in a single day – failing to cash in maybe 33 to 36 of them, while cashing in the remaining 10 to 15%.

I should be pleased then my first cash of the week has covered most of my entry fees – and I have even played a few sessions of cash poker (which has been quite exciting with lots of variance in my results – that’s for another blog entry.)

I have played a little blackjack with mixed results, but the last few trips I have come down here, it has been less interesting for me to even sit down at a blackjack table – I much much prefer poker now.

Most importantly, I am really enjoying the trip – I am doing what I love doing in my favourite place to do so, with my favourite person in the world as my travel companion. It’s all good.